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Today I write with a heavy heart, as the internet has reminded me (right on schedule) that the world is really fucked up – and in a plethora of ways.

Our world, our us, our humanity. What does that word even mean? Humanity.

I have grounded myself into a place where I will not let the narcissistic self loathing of our times consume me, I will not let it convince me I am so tiny that I cannot make a difference; that I should just simmer in apathetic and easy complacency.
More and more I am coming to realize that what is “easy” is not simple, and what is simple is far from easy.

But it hurts so much, and somedays I yearn to feel that apathy, I crave to understand the languish places of which so many of us have landed. The state of being that allows people to live each day in a place where heartache has been abandoned.
Because damn this pang is raw, like a thousand indignant marchers grabbing my at throat, despite the lack of recollection of why they had began marching to begin with. Like the tainted oxygen surrounding us leaving my breath short, my own womb mirrors that of our Earth’s – rumbling, twisting and lurching with sediment.
The pang is raw with consumption; a woman trespassed and sold, a pig tagged and bled, water bottled and resold. As if the culprit could see any difference between the three.
Eat. eat. eat.

We live in a time where eye contact is shunned, connection to our adversaries, our lovers, our food. Shunned. The intimate courtship of love, sex and death – a fading art. A sin even.
For years we arrive and depart from inside each other, thrusting in and out. Flesh against flesh, in a desperate reach towards feeling anything at all. Uncontemplative copulation, contact without contact. Climax without Orgasm.

I see anguish, hatred, war, and poison. I see suffering, in a world that advocates killing but refuses to acknowledge that death exists as anything but an affliction. I see all that is natural, all that is us, being crucified and resurrected, wrapped in plastic and artificially manufactured by emaciated milky eyed children younger than my own.
And then sold back to us; lacquered, sterilized. For our safety.

That blasted blanket statement of a word, Safety. I do not feel safe in this world, and I would be brazen in assuming that neither do you. Yet I harbour such a huge fucking adoration for this little blue marble, despite that ever-present same ache threatens to consume me. When I saturated in it’s darkness I cannot help but imagine and skirt on understanding the actions of political self immolation – because this fire under my skin threatens to ignite. The fire of passion, what a fearsome tool to behold.
I am angry, and I am scared, I am in pain but more so than anything I still am so damn in that love. With you, with all of this, or rather what all of this could be; and if I could I would turn it off, but that didn’t work before and it certainly wouldn’t work now. A tidal rush of intensity breaking down the makeshift dam of indifference. Wild hearts do not take well to being confined.

So I cannot go on, yet I continue on because anything else would be a lie – tiresome and meager. I am broke but not broken, I am female bodied but not weak, I am invisible in the eyes of the government but prominent in the eyes of my peers, and this pushes me to go on, even though by all means of logic I cannot.
Logic, safety, ache. These are all subjective. And every day for the past week the eagles have been circling my house, a bat sputtered around my home in graceful disarray, and a finch died quietly in my hands. I watched my daughter sing joyfully on stage, my house later this evening will be filled with the laughter of like-minded loved ones – loved ones that also ache, that also cannot go on – but will anyhow.
As long as I can live in a world with eagles, bats, singing and like-minded hearts I will have love.
This is not the nonchalant white picket fence do nothing as the world burns type of love, nor is it the violent extremist rubber bullets and homemade bombs type of love. It’s a love that doesn’t exist in-between them, but in-fact beyond them, not despite them but because of them.

In response to the times we are in, something beautiful and furious has arisen. Something in you and I that may stand to redefine revolution as a whole.
So I have love, and it tends to the colossal loneliness, the crippling doubt, and the fear of that lingering encompassing ache.
This love whispers to me

“You ache? Good, you are fortunate for the reminder of the state of things. That that ache and make it your power, take that power and make it your gift”
-but damn, some days; somedays are harder than others.

So what is Humanity? Some would say adolescent, destructive, tantrum prone, regressive by force. Call me radical, foolish or idealistic but instead I -in the spirit of my “Post-Jadedness”- choose to ask “what it could be?’ and to see what it IS in smaller circles – That is what utterly enchants me and keeps me going on and on and on.
It is the beauty. That of which we are collectively and individually capable of – And to be in service to beauty’s progress is a damn fine place to be; ache and all.

The sound of her wings
and the ocean’s whisper lapping the shore –
sometimes they still wake me;
arousing the warmest grief – an anamnesis that lives in my bones .
A bittersweet remembrance,
fostered by curious wondering as I wander on
– Faint I still feel a pulse. Still hear it’s beckoning.

She is an astroid – humming a lonely hymn

These nights I wake
Naked against the rocks – water begets air
ten tongues could not speak my reflection
a hundred hearts could not heal
that which I choose to keep mangled
Hell; perhaps it’s penance
perhaps it’s something else

Like smoke, she says I’m like smoke

and in these nights i wake wet
I thought of her a thousand times – still a name alludes me
breaching with subtly like the rising moon
laced with a silhouette
breaking bread with ghosts; rapacious and abandoned
and breaking silence with dissertation and prose-
-all for her

unknown, unsought, untouchable

Where have the maidens gone?
The mothers scorned and the crones forgotten.
Where is the Wild feminine? Kind and fierce –
Her seductive primal howl spreading herself open
– daring you come inside
Eyes sharp – she tears back with teeth and nail
the decaying meat that binds her
smiling with repletion.

She remembers.

they sought to save the world to take it somewhere safe,
but only succeed in leaving themselves behind
We are thoughts on tongue-tips now; and I terminate the words that tend
for what better
than to die a little death on tongues tip?
My cup over flows with a bittersweet memory;
easing the passing
of hungry ghosts that were never
meant for loving

The sound of her wings
and the ocean’s whisper lapping the shore –sometimes they still wake me

First one that comes to mind; during the aftermath of global strife and mass spread fear and shame – I let this utterly encompass me, it surrounds my every thought.
My resolution becomes clear as day; the exact thing that holds me back – stop beating yourself up for not being the change quick enough, stop beating yourself up for not being able to help everyone; stop looking at your achievements as “Good, but not good enough”

Tough self love is a necessary skill, but over time and with excessive use at some point it becomes an abusive relationship. I note with humility over this contemplation that I often boarder-line that type of contumelious connection with myself.

Why should anyone accept behaviour from one’s self towards themselves that they wouldn’t accept from other people?
When Catastrophe inflicts it’s detonation on the world I am far too quick to take it in to my body – nauseous and aching to feel in full it’s harrowing grief – and I am often foolish enough to try and feel it out alone; almost as if I was paying penance. Along with callously pushing away whatever person is altruistic enough to offer me solace. Why? Because I have convinced myself I am not worth it.

In these instances I am filled with a disheartened “What’s the point” mentality, one of which eats away at my inspiration and I am not accustomed to digesting with skillfulness. I see little lives change at some of the work that I do; they express with humbling adoration the effect I have had, but the work never gets easier – in fact it gets further strenuous: a dream that so much relies on – still homeless, still surrounded with such uncertainty.
And what of the rest of the world?

How do the little lives go on to prevent bombings, shootings, hatred – how do the little lives -now less laden with shame and guilt- these little dancers how do they stop the killing? How is it that I can put my full everything in to the world – and still have the cries of anguish echo in my ears from miles away, years away – I still feel them, and it hurts. God damn it hurts.

and then I become angry, and sorrowful, and I take it out on myself because it
“Wasn’t Enough”

But I need to stop that, if even for the sake of those who care for me, they should not have to watch me squirm when I perform emotional self flagellation. It’s not fair to them, or to me.
I need to remember that yes on the inside I am a fierce kind DragonKitty, but on the outside no matter how big or small I feel internally- I am a wee Human Girl, and I am doing everything I can; which is (I can say now because I am not at this moment swimming in narcissistic self loathing) a-fucking-lot.

The hell with Gregorian New Years; my resolution can start today.
Mya, take it easy on yourself.

Thoughts on Death and Love – and how they are not, nor should they ever be mutually exclusive. To truly love something or one deeply, is to love it’s end as well – in whatever form that takes.

Unfurling memories of friends, of kin – those passed on but far from gone. These instances by logic should get easier, but out of respect and authentic heart connection I am unsure if that is the case.

This past weekend Beloved fellow Scholar of the Orphan Wisdom school and friend of mine passed away; Anne Cressy of whom made me feel more at home in a strange place than I ever got to express to her; a respect and acceptance for an older Woman I have -unfortunately for me- not often felt. Along with her on the day previous my dearest Partner Ian and his brave and honourable family laid to rest their esteemed Grandfather Ian Mackenzie I. Guided by song, story and love -the way one should be- he slipped away in the home he had built – along with the clan he and his wife Agatha had cultivated first from across the Atlantic, and back to Canada again.

Death is the dance partner of whom has cradled and cavorted with us since our birth, the shadow of which is there even in our most alone times – the friend of whom will never abandon us despite our outright fear laden disdain for them. Such is their roll.

I want to believe that when those whom are closest to me – and even me – promenade comes to a halt I will be ready; that I will call forward my knowledge of ancestors and the unseen, that I will hold a space for them at the table of my days – and that I too will be seated at said table on the time of my departure. That I will live on in story; the stories of which I have become so fond of in my time – the stories I have come to realize we are compiled of. Stories are what make us Alive, even in Death.

But – I am scared, and a little angry.

These are so called natural feelings but how much if this natural affliction is instilled by our death phobic culture? How much poverty have we been subject to without even knowing it? There is a Rebel that rumbles inside of me and She teeters often on the fence of saving the world or abandoning its ridiculous ways all together – but I couldn’t do that, I love it far too much; no matter how much it hurts I have to keep dancing.

I have had a handful Friends and Family pass away in the past, and I have responded apathetically and passed by the chance to fully grieve them.
This is my shame, a regret that is laced with the wretched certainty of “too late”.
With them in mind and heart I vow to those of whom that are still tangible – still within my flesh’s reach- and to those of whom that are no longer able to feel the warmth my body conjures; that I will never quell that human instinct to mourn your loss out of cowardice surrounding the stigma of being “weak”, or being overtly obtrusive with my tears and what they are tied to.

Is is our birth right to be gifted the grief we’ve earned through out our time together – once passed these cries of heartache are the wind that pushes our sails to the next venture, and the breadcrumbs that bring us back to those we hold deeply in our hearts. This is our obligation and noble place as the living, to feed and guide our dead as they have fed will continue to guide us – as they wait readily -reminded of who we are by our remembering – to take our hand in to theirs whenever it is our time to join them.

Sometimes it seems too far brief of a time, or sometimes our bodies are suspended in space by machines keeping us here on borrowed time far longer than we should be. Never the less we all get what everyone else gets.
We all get a lifetime.

In the time that I have been living I have learned to weave my heart like spiders silk
a spinster sisters bestowal
All a tangle in the limbs of my lovers, a menacing knotted mess
of unabashed affection – Eros’s ever daunting thicket
this is the adoration of a wild one
–
That mess is my kinship and it’s potency my medium
this is my mother tongue. and to her I pledge fidelity
all at the hand of love

Such is the song of the journey, the longhawl incarnate,
wolves and other beast’s teeth, flesh and bone torn piece from piece
and renewed, again and again
to feed and be fed
satiating the hungry, the old ones half forgotten
We are sacred yes, but we thankfully are not unfuckable
so eat
– to then -as we do- become anew
all at the hand of love

So spill your simmered sorrow,
this grace is the bittersweet glaze of liquid death
a palatable pang dancing upon our tongues, unique unto it’s own
nourishing our bodies
if we let it.
–
Admitting we’ve not yet learned to chew, only offered a cesarian duplication of what “should be” –
-But then there is what “Could be”
We can choose, to be born in to the passage of becoming within the natural and birthrighten throws of heartache,
all at the hand of love

But what is this unbidden tenderness of which I banter on?
And how to attain the affections of a wild born woman-
Simple
-Love my end with you, whenever it may occur
Love me as if your spite in my passing will not override your amorous remembrance
Love me by your willingness to let me go-
Set no confinements or trappings for our interlaced Wildness-
for they are older and wiser than us both-
Heed this call, for the trueness of love-
and then I am yours
– as much as any wild thing could be

This path is not linear, nor will you find yourself unscathen
but there are certain things that lay resolute in my bones
–
from the day your heart began to beat, to the day it stops
from the time of beginning to the time of completion
to the moment the underside of your weary seastorm eyes become your last backdrop
this melange of experiencing, I will hold it all
all at the hand of love

So be this as it may, a continuing time of fluctuating elation, grief, understanding and deep relation – with everything
This love one day will read like a chapter closed, and thus a crippling wrinkle in a cycle that whispers hauntingly with utter devotion

Perhaps if we learned to see the transitions in our lives for what they truly are – to acknowledge, honour and respect the little deaths we face through out the years, months, and even on a daily basis – perhaps then the cultural phobia surrounding the “one death” (the big one) would gradually fade.

Perhaps if we stopped pretending these grievances didn’t happen or worse didn’t matter, we could release the terror rooted in being forgotten – in disappearance. We could connect our end, with all the little ends we’ve learned from; we could feel like had mattered.

Perhaps then we would understand, that the ripple we started would continue to expand long after we became one with the ocean of time.
Perhaps these little deaths serve to show us that they/we feed new life; they teach us, with or without our conscious knowing of it.

Perhaps if we listen we would hear that our final gift can be the greatest one; and each little life we’ve felt come and go has too been a gift to the source.

Little or large, tangible or abstract; all of these lives have significance – their beginning and their end.

I dreamed of an event;
filled with a melange of folk, old and young;
Sometimes it was a dance party, otherwise a theatric performance; sometimes it was just delightful and cultured chaos.
The night was coming to an end and he approached me;

“What is it you fear child?”

The older man with the crows feet and thick viking accent asked.
I hesitated

“I fear a life wasted and unremembered, and a death equally so. I fear failure; and the foreboding shadow of “too late”

He nodded.

The whole event he had been very jovial; like a favourite -perhaps often moderately drunk- uncle. Sometimes I could barely tell if he was human or some other type of playful animal. Now though there was nothing but certitude and wisdom in his intense stare; one that beamed with a sobriety I had never even fathomed.

He gently took my index finger and concentrated intently on it; reading it.
He rested in the place between words for what seemed like an eternity and then abruptly let out a heavy breathe.

‘Your life’s, and then your death’s gifts will come and go like the tides; but if it is a death without memorial you dread; you have nothing to fear.
Your debts to this world will be paid in full; you are now and will be loved until you are forgotten.
Death – when it is time – will be your last gift to this world.”

With tears I squeeze his hand in gratitude; hard. Swiftly then I wake up; with words in mind and pillow slightly dampened.

It lingers in the shattered and lost creatures, uprooted archaic bones, white crosses strone across the black rock laden beach.

All the while I watch the world pass by, ignoring -forcibly, like children with fingers in their ears- We are the victims of a deathless life; burdened by the shock of it’s impending arrival.

Our kindred souls remain unmourned, our jobs as the living unfulfilled. Half moulded we lay stagnant in our infancy.
try as I have I was never granted that that handicap. The world gifts me to death, as I will someday gift death back to it.

Vancouver; once again I am enchanted by you; the secrets you keep the hearts you give refuge.

In moments of serene silence we two beings circled a mass delight of phonic chaos.
Costumed and embodied; fuelled and stimulated by the re-remembered ancestry of those who so fervently wanted to dance; those waiting in the midst of the thinning veil of Mí na Samhna.
When you practice speechlessness you hear and receive on a level no words could delineate.
Blood boils as they feast on our unified somatic offering; a gift of the souls sweet honey and autumns spirited harvest.

We play; spiral and cavort as the universe serenades.

From hallowed fire and a seasons dying; we become new and old all the same.
Our own collective Cata-strophe:

“A way woven for us that didn’t wait for our readiness.”

As above so bellow.

I am blessed to be dancing with you all on this journey; alive and otherwise.
Thank you.